


sever the ties that hold you down

by LocketShoru



Series: Aeternum -Iridescence- [3]
Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Anthropomorphic, Enemies to Lovers, Gen, Guns, M/M, Survival, as in they're still enemies atm, mild violence, slowburn, sort of there's a fight scene but I don't think it's very graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22579015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: [Aeternum III] Every time Aiacos wants to think of himself a king, someone comes to try and ruin his day. Ah, the glorious life of a ravager king.
Relationships: Aries Shion/Garuda Aiacos
Series: Aeternum -Iridescence- [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596289
Comments: 14
Kudos: 6





	sever the ties that hold you down

Ah, music to his ears, as easily as it always came. He’d risen to the top, hadn’t he? And now he was the one perched upon a tower of steel and aluminum, wrapped together with copper and iron. Scrap metal built into a throne, lightning channeled from the heavens down into the Phlegethon. All for him, of course. He was the one born with wings, and he was the one who cut down his every opponent to keep them. He was Aiacos, and that meant his every word was law.

Below him were his subjects, or his subordinates, or his underlings and grunts if he really wanted to be blunt about it. They carried out his orders, and he oversaw them from his throne, and if they ever argued, he showed them just what he was capable of. He had the knowledge and the feathers to make it all work. He was the head engineer and it was his design that lead to what they had built out of the rubble.

Frankly, he was amazed they ever got anything done without him. He shifted back in his seat, fidgeting with a loose wire. Below him, his subordinates were working, and if they worked to the bone, well. Maybe they should’ve worked harder to get where he was. At the moment, it wasn’t even his true concern. The other ravager clans were getting bolder, and he wasn’t liking the idea of one of them trying to siege him. It would be an awful inconvenience, and all it would achieve was losing more resources they didn’t have, fighting a force that could actually fight back.

A hunting horn blasted from the distance, a sharp melody he recognized well. He hadn’t come up with the melody, but he had vetoed every suggestion until they found a perfect call. Eventually they had, and now that horn’s call made them distinct across all the ravager factions. Best of yet, they were the only ones who _had_ a proper Norse hunting-horn call, not like the Aries clan that seemed to think blasting their copy of Led Zeppelin’s discography was a good way to tell the world they were coming.

In the distance, he could hear a rumbling. He held up his right arm towards it, allowing the sensor of the monitor to pick it up. He’d built it from three broken ones found on bloody corpses from the remains of their attack on a cultivator settlement, and added a few pieces and upgrades as he needed to. A surprising amount of hardware had survived the initial apocalypse and was only waiting to be scavenged or taken as victory loot over their previous owners. If you couldn’t fight to keep it, you didn’t deserve to have it.

He stood from his throne, sighing deeply, adjusting the straps of his monitor before shaking out his wings and fluffing out his tail, slowly extending his wingspan until they were fifteen feet tip-to-tip, stretching out the hard muscles in his back and below his shoulders. He took a step forward, and dove.

The only person who could get up to his throne without fifteen minutes of climbing was himself. He did have an aerial force, four strong, but they were low on the food chain, and he made it clear to them that he might promote them if they did their jobs to perfection. He never once had the intention: if he didn’t subjugate them, they would try to take his place, and there was only one black angel allowed in the Garuda Ravagers.

He tucked in his wings in the descent, spreading them out about twenty feet off the ground, looping easily back upwards, arms following the joint of his wings like a cape. It was easier than anything else, tail fanning out behind him, wings extended to carry him forward towards the sound of that hunting horn.

There would be a vehicle waiting for him, an old construction vehicle that had survived and had been patched up with tank treads and the engine of the most powerful cars they’d been able to find: several transport trucks and a few racecars, all patched together to make one hell of a beast. The terrain didn’t stand a chance against him once he was behind the wheel, as little of a chance as it did when he flew.

He spotted the patrol that was already shuffling everything together: a dozen warriors, clothes of gas masks and steel and rags and repurposed motorcycle adventure gear. They would’ve looked like a parody straight out of _Mad Max: Fury Road_ if they weren’t half-scrap metal and standing in the ruins of one of the greatest metropolises ever built. One of the warriors had two limbs made entirely out of scrap. He hadn’t lowered himself to do the job, but he had designed it, and all the software was to his specifications. One of the main perks of being someone with engineering certifications that had actually survived: if the man wanted his prosthetic to not lock down or try to kill him, he had to obey the one who had the security override. He was in control, and he didn’t want anyone to think otherwise.

He landed easily beside one of the others, identified by the overlarge backpack that looked more like a jetpack, if looked at correctly. The man had been forced to make himself a pair of robotic arms, his hands entirely useless now that they were claws, the dark blue shell coating most of his body almost exactly like that of some sort of crab.

“Hello, Manigoldo,” he said, ever so sweetly, eyeing what he was doing. “Think you can make that rusty scrap of yours any faster like that?”

Manigoldo jumped, turning, eyeing him right back. His eyes were black from one side to another under the mask. “It’s the fuel injector. She doesn’t run electric and I haven’t seen any new parts. If we run into the Aries camp again I know I can get some, that cat of theirs has a similar bike I can rip up for parts, and if I get lucky, someone will kill him so we can quit losing people to him.” His voice was dark and muffled, and he reached back with a metal hand, adjusting a couple of the knobs for his oxygen tank.

“You really ought to find something electric, or just go out and kill him yourself, you know,” Aiacos answered, laughter under his tone. “Ain’t nothing stopping you.”

“I suppose not. Where are we heading out this time? Fyodor called the patrol, I didn’t know you were coming.” Manigoldo leaned down to mess with something in the dualsport, wiping away oilstains to fidget with it.

“Out north, they’ve discovered a settlement and I want it gutted and brought home for parts. If we’re lucky, they’ll have a stockpile of food, and we’re running low. I know the Scorpions haven’t restocked their damn warehouse.” He rubbed a thumb against one lens of his mask’s goggles, clearing away some of the dirt. Turning away from Manigoldo, he eyed the road, or at least, the most stable patch of destroyed skyscrapers, sighing to himself as two of his subordinates drove his vehicle forward, stopping it about twenty feet away from him.

They dropped off, unloading a bike from the back before scattering out of his way. He spread his wings, flapping once to take off, jumping easily on top of its hood, eyeing the dozen warriors surrounding the small area.

“We’re heading north, boys, there’s a new settlement and we’re bringing home the bounty. Chins up, don’t be fucking pansies about it. Let’s go.” He fell ever so slightly backwards, dropping into the driver’s seat and sliding the sunroof closed. He pulled the key out of his pocket and jammed it into the ignition, salivating a little as the engine kicked over. It was time to go out and enrichen himself a little more, see if there wasn’t any delicacies to be found and never shared. He was the black angel, the garuda himself. He deserved only the best.

They were on the road for an hour, a construction vehicle, two pickup trucks, one very determined repurposed transport truck and nine motorcycles, each with little cargo besides survival, all oil- and spraypainted with his banner. They’d salvaged so much from the initial carnage. Of course, he’d had it the best: he’d been at a private engineering boarding school for the very best, learning cutting edge technology and inventing, and when the world had fallen down, every single one had slipped into lockdown procedure. They’d survived for over a year before the first people started dying. The students started to rise up against the headmaster, and nothing the adults had done could have saved them. There was nothing left but carnage, but they would have killed each other without proper leadership. He’d been the one to rise alive out of the bloodbath.

His clan was forty-three strong, and all of them knelt to him, and most of them had been classmates, once. He’d offered the remaining faculty a simple choice: join up, or he gave them a quarter-hour headstart before the hunting horn blew. They’d hunted down every last one, and the blood was rich and coppery-lightning on his tongue.

They drove on. Two bikes - Manigoldo, a crab; and Fyodor, a poisonous plant of some sort - lead the way, testing the ground for weaker spots as they drove. His rearview mirror showed both pickups on one side and the transport truck - it was honestly more of a U-Haul if he wanted to be honest, which he never did - took the other side, the bikes flanking the front. It was a brilliant display. Anyone who saw them coming would know to surrender. His monitor displayed the oxygen levels to be relatively high here: that was good, the direct path they’d chosen did follow well with the winds, and they were pretty well on course. All going well, they’d be there in a little less than half an hour. Then it was to dig their loot out of the ruins, and claim their bounty.

For a moment, all was silence, and then the next, he could hear a faintly muffled, but deeply alarming guitar, blasted over a stereo. He knew that guitar riff far too well for it to be good news.

“Fuck,” he hissed, glowering to himself. Last thing he needed was the Aries clan taking them on the road. He didn’t want to share bounty, which he would inevitable have to do if they tagteamed them, but they were always too evenly matched to risk a fight on the road. Shion had similar strategies as he did, and would’ve haven taken more than a third of his clan with him. If he knew where the Aries clan had their homebase, that might be different: if they stormed and sieged them, they might actually win. On the road? Not a chance. It would only end in a great loss of resources, and he wasn’t willing to risk his own life, either.

Sure enough, over a ridge that was once an overpass, he spotted the exhaust smoke of what was inevitably an Aries clan raid: nine warriors, maybe ten, if his count was good. They wouldn’t be able to take them head-on, and sure enough, the blasting of Led Zeppelin was getting louder. 

“Uh, Commander?” yelled one of his bikers. “Think we have a little bit of a problem!” He swore again, reaching to the glovebox and pulling out a hunting horn. He put it to his lips and blew, blasting the short melody of Garuda.

The overpass fell away, and they were driving right beside the Aries clan, and there he was: Shion himself, who was rich enough to allow his yellow-green hair to fly free from his spot on his truck, right up at the top in sniper’s position. He wore a gas mask that had clearly been outfitted around ram’s horns, and he looked up at Aiacos, locking eyes. He couldn’t see Shion’s expression, but he didn’t have to: he’d see those eyes in his dreams, goat and slanted, and never forget the terror they wielded.

The Aries clan held up guns, having armed their own vehicles well with semi-automatic sniper weapons. At the moment, those quads and ATVs had wheels, but at a moments notice, those wheels would rise off the ground to be replaced by crawler’s legs, allowing for better access to the terrain. He would have slaughtered entire settlements to take their technology, if ever he had the chance to do so.

Manigoldo belted out his horn from his bike, slowing to a stop. Aiacos pressed down on the brake automatically, looking away from Shion to see what the matter was. There was the settlement in the distance, not far off at all: and it was already burning, black exhaust and acrid plastic and columns of red, red smoke that only meant one thing.

“Scorpions,” he hissed, coming to a stop. The Aries clan stopped dead about the same time his clan did: heads pointed towards the crimson smoke that meant they were too late. He rose out of his vehicle, pushing the sunroof open and perching himself on the hood. “Hey, Aries,” he yelled. 

Shion rose out of his place in his truck, ram’s tail lashing. “Too late, Garuda,” he called back, his voice amplified a little more than necessary. “There isn’t going to be anything left. If you really want to fight, that’s your damn loss!”

He opened his mouth to argue, only to be cut off by a muffler doing the opposite of its job, amplifying the roar of an engine. The ground rumbled, and his bikers pulled back, drawing up closer to him. And then the ground exploded: scrap metal scattering itself out of the way as a beast of a machine pulled away, mechanical gears and pullers and hydraulic pistons groaning as the metal scorpion pulled itself out of the ruins.

The cockpit opened, and there was the scorpion himself: Kardia, leader of the Scorpion Ravagers that he’d lost too many men and resources to. They’d started out almost a hundred strong, and it was mostly the Scorpions that had driven them down to half that. They couldn’t fight them at the peak of their power, and certainly couldn’t do so now. Kardia let out a brutal laugh.

“Look at what we’ve got here, boys!” he said cheerily, and somehow, Aiacos could hear every word, every syllable enunciating a lump growing in his throat. They would lose. Even if Shion didn’t turn tail and run, they were going to lose. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have their heads on platters for our table at the feast tonight? Shion and Aiacos and all their pretty men.” He stretched, all four arms out and his tail, left open and poisonous, lashed. His mask was transparent, stained with blood, and that was for a reason: he could afford it, and he wanted them to see his smile.

He dared to glance ever so slightly in Shion’s direction, to see him slowly shifting downwards, reaching for where he knew he kept his best military-grade weapon. If Shion was prepared to fight, and see about shooting down Scorpions and going down fighting, well. He wasn’t the coward here, and it wasn’t like he’d be able to escape alive, not with all of his men. If they lost anything, Kardia would just tail them home.

Shion met his glance, locking eyes for those rectangular, violet eyes he knew were under that gas mask. He eyed him bravely, ignoring the lump in his throat. This was it, this was where he was going to die, and he was going to take Kardia down with him. He reached into his own door compartment, pulling out his own favourite weapon. Nothing quite like using the radioactivity in the air to engineer better weapons when there wasn’t a military base in the valley. 

For a moment, there was silence. Then Shion lifted his gun, and he mirrored him. They fired. He saw Kardia’s smile, and everything so easily began. He dropped back into the driver’s seat and slammed on the gas. “Manigoldo! Fyodor! Take out its legs!” he screeched, driving forward in hopes he might actually be able to run it over.

The metal scorpion tucked in its legs and dove forward, a better version of Shion’s crawler technology, diving into the rubble and sheet metal. Aiacos leaned out of the window, firing three rounds into the hole, flooring the gas. The good part about having lived up north: snowplows had been common, and they did well at frontal assaults.

He lowered the plow a few inches off the ground, driving forward into Kardia’s troops. Bikes and ATVs and cars and quite a few mechanical beasts of burden, and even worse, what looked like tamed beasts of the deep layers. They made a sickening crunch against his plow, and he drove forward, hoping to cleave a pathway through his forces.

His face met his windshield. It cracked and fell away before him. He felt himself launching through it, turning in midair heels over head, and the last thing he saw was his vehicle entirely on the front tips of its treads, Kardia’s scorpion below it, tail through the driver’s seat. He fell.

He bounced off of something, slamming his shoulder into something that shattered under the forces, landing on what seemed to be something soft and hard at the same time, with a sickening crunch. Amazingly, he wasn’t in any pain. He spread his wings and kicked off, driving his heel into whatever he’d landed on. There was nothing but wind and a sharp pain in his shin, like someone had stabbed him.

He was fifty feet in the air before he even noticed the extra weight. He’d landed on someone, someone bearing Kardia’s emblem who was now hanging off of him by nothing but the knife they’d stabbed him in the shin with. He kicked out, snarling, and they fell away, knife still embedded in his flesh. That was good. He had a hole in him, but he also had a stopper. 

He dove, snarling, somehow hadn’t lost his gun. He started firing. The Scorpions were firing back, too, and all he had to do was make it difficult for them to catch him. He flew onwards, firing, aiming for every rider and cockpit he saw. His gun clicked, out of ammo. Manigoldo was down, kicking a Scorpion in the face, crab claws slick with blood. Aiacos dove, raising the gun by the barrel, swinging it out and down to crack the bastard’s head open before flying up again, zigzagging, looping, keeping his flying erratic. They couldn’t hit him if he wasn’t where they thought he was going to be.

Manigoldo made a noise of gratitude and got up. He was already elsewhere, trying to find his men, trying to find another weapon. “I need ammo!” he yelled, diving again to keep himself away from what he knew was going to be another bullet. He was already tiring. He wasn’t going to be able to keep it up, and the higher he flew, the more he could taste the radioactivity.

“Aiacos!” someone yelled, and he dropped towards the voice, catching the decked-out machine gun midair. He aimed and started shooting, the butt of the gun secure at his shoulder. If he was lucky…

A high, deafening whistle cracked him across the back of his skull and he yelped. His wings caught with the sudden, searing pain. He fell.

When he awoke, it was nearing evening, and he could hear the gentle crackle of a fire. He forced his eyes to open, forced his back to allow him to sit up. “Easy,” said a soothing-sounding voice beside him. He forced his sight to clear, blinking several times, until the vague, darkened form of Manigoldo was recognizable before him. He looked exhausted, goggles secure and gask mask over his face, but his posture was hunched over and down, like he didn’t have the energy to sit up any straighter.

“How long was I out?” he found himself asking, his voice a little distant. Now that he could see more, and the dizziness in his head was clearing, he could make out three others scattered around a ten-foot diametre circle, shifting around, rummaging the few feet around them for supplies. Around them, more than rubble, was the remains of the battle, and a lot more blood than he expected.

“About four hours, judging by your monitor. It’s fair. That stupid banshee of theirs knocked everyone out. Kardia didn’t even kill us on his second sweep. He just took all of our stuff and left.” Manigoldo’s voice was raw and bitter and ragged, and he didn’t blame him, not one bit. He sat up a little more, until he could rest his forearms on his legs, forcing himself into a better position. His shin appeared to be patched up.

“Where is everyone else? We tried to tagteam with the Aries clan, how did that work out?”

There was a shuffling behind him, and he turned, trying to ignore the wave of nausea from the movement. About twenty feet away, on the other side of the clearing, were seven people, all various animal-people, all wearing the remains of emblems of a ram. Shion was among them, forcing down what looked to be food.

“They demolished us too, if that’s what you’re hoping for,” Shion said bitterly. “No point fighting right now. None of us have any weapons or vehicles - your stupid fucking clan and mine. We still have you outnumbered, and none of your men are in any condition. If I got up and ripped your throat out, they can’t stop me, and neither can you.”

His voice was the dry anger of exhaustion, of someone making threats because they were too exhausted for an actual fight. “He’s lying,” called Fyodor, about five paces away with the remains of his left leg decently patched up. He’d grow it back soon enough, wood and bark and stronger. “Both of his legs are broken, he can’t stand up. Scorpion warhorse sat on him. Manigoldo called a temp-truce until you could handle it, ‘cause let’s be real here, nobody here would survive another fight and it’s pointless. We’re less likely to be eaten by something if we stick together and pretend to be one band of assholes for now.”

He thought for a moment of where they were, of Fyodor’s meaning, and winced. The last thing he needed was for the other issue of radiation to get in his way: mutated, cyborg animals that had taken metal and taken on a life of their own. They made good mounts if they could be tamed. Only Scorpions ever managed to get that far, and he didn’t know how many had died trying. Not enough, that was for sure.

“Manigoldo’s deal is good for me, by the sounds of it,” he answered finally, a dark tone in his voice. “Might as well not get eaten. Pride can shove it up someone’s ass, I enjoy being fucking alive. Anyone have any water?”

“I do,” one of the Aries warriors said, glancing at Shion before tossing it over the three feet of no man’s land between the two camps. Manigoldo caught it with his ankles, holding it over. He took it without batting an eye. If he grabbed at it with his claws, he’d just slice it. He pushed his mask out of the way and drank deeply, glad for how clean it seemed to be, and the lack of bitter taint. When he pulled back for a breath, he glanced at his monitor, somehow undamaged in the fight. That was good. It was connected to his nervous system, and he didn’t feel like losing it. He didn’t have a spare, and was glad it was still there. The oxygen levels were a little lower than he liked, but it was better than nothing.

Shion leaned over, looking interested. “Is that one of those fancy oxygen readers? Does it work?”

He glowered at him from the corner of his eyes. “You want to barter for that, _Aries_?” he answered, looking annoyed.

“We gave you water, and I’m not hitting you with this pistol I found,” he answered, folding his arms. His legs were stretched out in front of him, splinted and set straight. All things considered, he was surprisingly coherent. “The least you could do is tell me what it does. I’ve never seen one up close that works.”

He sighed, resigned, and took a breath. “Technically, it’s a nervous-wired touch-operated Raspberry Muffin, GSX348. One of my professors made them right before the accident, for all students and faculty. She made as many more as she could, and when we wanted to keep them for spares, she took her entire supply and ran for it. She died, presumably, but she made it to civilization. I’ve seen some on cultivators. Basically, it’s a computer and monitoring equipment that’s supposed to help keep me alive. It checks oxygen levels, survivability, the time and date, the exact composition of my blood and what my body needs, and has a database of survival and engineering information.”

“Fusion-power?” Shion asked. While he was speaking, the others had inched closer, ravagers of both camps, looking interested and hoping for more.

“Of course. Not much, not enough it’s a power source, but enough to keep its battery for a long, long time,” he answered. He didn’t try to shift his position. It would have hurt too much, especially with the dull ringing in his ears. 

One of the Aries warriors inched over to him, goat legged and with straight-backed horns, and held up what looked to be beef jerky. “You said you had the time and date?” he asked, and behind the dark glasses, Aiacos could see his eyes shining brighter than they had any right to. He took the jerky, biting into it with vigor. He didn’t get enough salt according to the monitor, and he was going to need the extra energy.

Once he was done eating, he tapped the interface, shuffling up into the top menu. “June 26th, 9:07pm, 2087,” he read out. “Sounds about right. We got here at maybe… two? Looks like I was out for longer than we thought.” He felt like it, too. It wasn’t often he actually got to sleep, and a good seven hours was more than he ever got.

The goat looked away, shifting back across no man’s three feet of land back to his own camp. “Does it matter to you, Elcid? We’re still here, and still fucked,” Shion said, his voice annoyed.

“My daughter’s birthday was three days ago,” he answered. “She would have been twelve.” He shifted more into the corner, under what used to be a column and now made a small overhang, keeping himself away from the light of the flames. He kept his arms folded, but his tail was lashing.

“Bully for you, then,” Manigoldo said, relaxing down into a more laying position. “Who’s taking first shift, Aiacos?”

“I will,” he answered, resolving to move into a more comfortable position, tapping on his monitor to jolt him in about three hours. “We leave at dawn and try to scavenge up what we can and head back. Best to just wait out the night.”

“Does your Raspberry seriously have an alarm on it?” Shion said, voice faintly amused despite everything. Aiacos nodded, and before he could speak, Shion continued. “Awesome. I’ll take first watch, and we can rely on that too. Elcid, you’re taking next watch, so go sleep off being a dick for now. If we get eaten because you slacked off, you’ll wish you joined your daughter in death.”

Elcid glowered at him and turned over onto his side, his back to them. Around him, Aiacos watched as everyone shuffled off into sleeping positions, mostly where they were. Someone had gathered enough flammable material to keep the two campfires going for another few hours. There was a shuffling from the Aries camp, and he squinted, until he could pick out a warrior who had what seemed to be a sort of stringed instrument. He pulled off his gloves, and wearily, started to play. Shion leaned back a little, back against a chunk of rubble, and listened. Aiacos found himself doing the same.

“ _Hold my hand; ooh, baby, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river. Hold my hand; ooh, baby, it's a long way down, a long way down…_ ”

He didn’t close his eyes, but he found himself listening anyway. It was a soothing song, accompanied by the music. It had been so long since he’d heard anything of the sort. “ _If you get sleep or if you get none, cock's gonna call in the morning, baby. Check the cupboard for your daddy's gun, red sun rises like an early warning- the Lord's gonna come for your first born son, hair's on fire and his heart is burning, so go to the river where the water runs, wash him deep where the tides are turning… And if you fall, if you fall_ …”

The Aries warrior belted out the chorus again, soft and smooth, and he found himself smiling just a little. A perfect, bloody song, perfect for savage ravagers out on a dare to survive the night. At least the Scorpions seemed far off, and dark was certainly crawling in. Shion’s tail was only gently beating against the ground, like he wasn’t so annoyed as usual.

“ _The wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight, drunk and driven by a devil's hunger… Drive your son like a railroad spike, into the water, let it pull him under; but don't you lift him, let him drown alive - the good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder. Let that fever make the water rise, and let the river run dry, aye…_ ”

The warrior finished the song, slow and smooth like a funeral procession, and was out cold not long after that. Shion shifted forward, tossing another bit of something flammable onto the Aries fire.

“Where’s the rough location of your nearest settlement, Shion?” he asked, looking up, after a few moments of silence.

“Why are you asking?” he answered, not bothering to raise his voice above an exhausted speaking volume. 

“Been turning over the math in my head. Only way any of us are surviving to get home is if we stick together, and that’s easier if you’re not going in a different direction.” He glanced at his monitor, checking his location and the compass. They were north of the nearest settlement, probably a good two days’ walk on foot with everyone injured. It was maybe an hour or two with the vehicles. Not that there was any chance of that, now.

Shion lifted an arm enough to point in a direction. “That way, about three hours’ drive. You’ve got a settlement about half an hour from us. I’d apologize for stealing all your stuff from it, but it’s close by and you suck at guarding it.”

“I’m not arguing right now,” he muttered, sighing. He looked up at the dark, radioactive-cloud-filled sky. “Not if I want to live, and most ways of doing that require your cooperation.”

“Ha. You sound almost _grateful_.” 

“Shut your stupid goat face. I don’t have broken legs.” He glowered. Shion only dipped his head, his mask hiding what he was sure was a smug smile. It almost didn’t even annoy him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorryyyyyy it took so long, midterms got sprung on me and also this one took a lot of brainstorming to make work. Shoutout to Kiril, my fiance; and Tsuko from the Aries Hell Group for being soundboards. Next one's a MiAlba!  
> The song that Atla (unnamed in the fic) is singing is Delta Rae's Bottom of the River. I wanted to do a Seanan McGuire song, but I haven't found one that fits yet, hmmm.  
> As always, reviews and kudos make me so very happy, and help me work faster. Love all of you! <3  
> Edit: Thanks to Calaerwen, who is awesome and very brave and who I love very much, we now have [a Chinese translation up on Lofter!](https://calaerwen.lofter.com/post/1ea0fbaa_1ca90a9a8#) If you'd rather read in Chinese, head on over!~


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